The Girl in the Water

by A J Grayson

  No, it isn’t. Shit. But it still wasn’t right.

  But, fuck. I don’t have to let someone else torture a person I already screwed over.

  I knew something was wrong with that second doc at the hospital. Not the main one, but the meds guy who was always with him. The way he looked at me, the way he talked to me when his boss wasn’t in the room. Creepy. No other word for it. Way too fucking intense, and too many damned questions.

  Then, to take everything I told him, and just keep it to himself? No, something definitely wrong with that.

  I couldn’t just sit on it.

  I tried. God, they let me go, and I wasn’t going to slap back at that. Wasn’t sure I’d ever see the outside of a mental hospital or prison again during those days; but when they let me walk, hell, I was going to take freedom.

  Guilt follows you around, though. I guess I’ve known that most of my life, but it’s taken the whole of life to sink in.

  I wasn’t ready to be a part of more evil.

  So I started to explore. Two years after I was out, I got to work. Got the name of the doc who’d handled the meds and I started a little … I guess on TV they’d call it an investigation. My little spy game. And what’s a girl supposed to think when you discover a man’s left his job and changed his name? Does he not know there are records of such things, if someone’s really looking?

  Is there a good reason for a person to do something like that?

  It’s how I knew he was up to no good. From there, I had to track him down. Took some doing, but I found the CVS Pharmacy in San Francisco where he works, and snuck in one day to have a peak. ‘David Howell’ was there, white lab coat just like in the hospital. Living a new life. Fucker.

  I didn’t let him see me, but that was all the proof I needed that something was wrong. So I kept up my search. Found out he lived in Windsor, up past Santa Rosa, and was … married.

  Can’t really describe how it made me feel to learn that piece of information. Because I knew, I just knew, right from the first second, that the woman, the ‘wife’, was going to be Amber Jackson. The look on his face when I’d talked about her, it was … obsessive. Possessive. And then he vanishes from his job, his name, and reappears up north with a new wife?

  Amber Jackson was being abused again. I could feel it in my bones. And I’d led her to him. Fuck! Just like when we were kids, only this time I hadn’t known what I was doing.

  She’s haunted me my whole life, that bitch. But then I’ve gone and sent her into hell another time.

  So there was really only one thing to do. I had to go to Windsor, find Amber, and tell her what was happening. Tell her who her ‘husband’ really is. And set her free. One good, decent, act to maybe redeem some corner of my life.

  And so I’m here. Sun’s nearing the middle of the sky, nice and warm after a night spent alongside the river, just out of town, for lack of any better option. Stars ain’t a bad roof if the weather’s okay, I gotta admit. I’ve been here almost a week, watching Amber’s movements, getting a sense of the patterns of her days. I want to approach her when David isn’t there, when I can talk to her openly about everything, without his influence. I think I’ve got their routine worked out.

  So I spend one last night of calm under the stars before I meet with her. Because it has to be today. No more delaying. I’ve learned all I’m gonna learn. Gotta act before I lose my resolve.

  Then maybe, maybe, I can bring some good to the woman I ruined all those years ago.

  61

  Amber

  THE SAME DAY

  Every morning, my eyes look back from our bathroom mirror and they taunt me. They seem to know they do, and they sit so prominently on my face purely as a way to rub it in.

  I’m ignoring them today. I’m ignoring them because I’m not one to get obsessed with the what-ifs of how life could have been if my parents had matched me up – had given me a name to pair with the blue between my lids, or had passed along genes that gave me the amber I so wish matched my name. I’m not that sort of lady. Life gives you what it gives you, and you learn to love the story that’s been placed in your hands.

  I’m out the door at a little past one thirty, having spent the whole morning lolling about the apartment, playing a bit with Sadie in the back garden and then pottering about the place in the way one does. Even made myself brunch, consumed almost at lunchtime. We’ve been given a day off from the bookshop on account of the air filtration system in the building, which county health and safety has demanded the store upgrade before we’re let back in among the volumes, and I’m determined to make the most of the day. There are trails and paths on the outskirts of Windsor that I’ve only rarely walked. Some I’ve never even set foot on. David and I have lived a stone’s throw from the deep inland curves of Russian River for years, and I’ve yet to stroll its banks. Seems irresponsible, if nothing else. And I don’t know if David’s ever taken Sadie there either, and that seems almost sinful. Dogs and nature are pure-bred partners. So today’s the day to explore, for both of us.

  The sun is out, the sky a bright afternoon blue dotted with cotton-white clouds. A more or less perfect day. It only takes fifteen minutes to abscond from the town proper, walking east on River Road into the hedgerows that lead to the water, and by the time I reach the river the boughs of greens and browns are playing delightfully with sunlight and shadow. The breeze is gentle and warm, and the shade occasionally cool.

  The water of Russian River is green, flowing slowly. At times it is wide, and I know it only gets wider and deeper as it flows towards the coast; but I prefer its narrower stretches, where a good throw could skip a rock from one side to the other. I stop for a moment along one of these stretches, stand at the water’s edge and watch the little flurries of life there. The growth of algae, insects slogging along its gelatinous surface. Birds wandering through the reeds looking for breakfast. A frog, eyeing the whole scene with seeming disinterest. In the background, somewhere out of sight, the sweet song of water thrushes, texturing the air.

  I should come here more often. I live next to an entire universe that only reveals itself to a slow stroll and a sympathetic eye. To a world racing by at breakneck pace it’s like Clark Kent with his glasses on – a mystery masked so gently, yet so fully.

  I follow the path further away from town, along the river’s edge. It might not be a mighty ocean, no, but any water soothes me. I think of the sea, with its great waves and tides. The lakes further north, tucked like little jewels into the texture of the earth; and here, this gentle flow, ebbing and flowing like life itself.

  The tree cover grows thicker as I walk, the path less well tended and more given to the potted texture of nature. It’s obviously been used before, though it’s starting to feel like it’s not a maintained footpath. Just a route people like to follow. There are footprints in damp soil – fresh, most of them – and there’s a sound, too, up ahead. Not nature’s voice, but man’s.

  Or rather, a woman’s.

  She is singing gently to herself, whoever she is, the way I sometimes do when I walk alone. Half a known tune, half improvisation, notes spontaneously matched to whatever words might fit them. I’m already smiling. We don’t normally witness these little intimacies in other people. The moment someone enters our line of sight, we tend to go silent.

  A few steps later I round a bend, and the woman with the singsong voice becomes visible. She’s a few yards off, her back to me, and there’s no sign she’s sensed my approach. Her singing continues, uninterrupted.

  I’m in a good mood, and it seems only polite to let her know I’m here. I don’t want to startle the woman, much less embarrass her. So I draw Sadie closer to myself and let out a noticeable cough, an ‘accidental’ clearing of my throat, and the woman stops her singing. She turns, a shadow hiding her face from view. And then the breeze blows, and I can see her.

  EMMA

  Oh Christ, she’s not supposed to be here. She’s not supposed to be the one who finds me, it’s
meant to be the other way around! I walk into her neighbourhood. I approach her apartment. I ring the bell. That’s the plan. Fuck, that’s the goddamned plan! I’ve worked it out, got my remarks all lined up in my head.

  She doesn’t take walks along the river. She doesn’t walk the dog. That’s her ‘husband’s’ job.

  This isn’t how this goes!

  AMBER

  I’m frozen. I cannot move. I have no pulse, no breath. Everything in me vanishes, and all in an instant.

  As the woman turns and faces me, something happens inside my heart. I’ll never be able to explain it, but the whole world ceases to connect to me. It carries on existing, it doesn’t just evaporate – I can see the water, and the woman, still moving. But I’m no longer here, and no longer me. Another woman is standing at the shoreline, gazing at this stranger.

  ‘You!’ The word comes out of the throat attached to the body I’m in, first as a whisper, but then as a roar. ‘YOU!’ My vision has gone a glaring, phosphorescent white, and she’s the only thing in it.

  The woman somehow recognizes the me I’ve become, a stranger even I can’t identify. Her face contorts in what looks like horror.

  ‘What the fuck are you doin’ out here!’ she shouts, but it isn’t really a question. She’s shocked, not confused. ‘I didn’t want you to see me yet. Not like this. You never take walks out here! I’ve been watching!’

  Something is familiar as she speaks. I’ve never heard her voice before, but this other woman, this new woman inside me, has.

  Long ago.

  A forgotten span of years.

  Pain rips through this body.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ I shout. I find myself adding ‘Bitch!’ even without knowing why. I hate this woman I’ve never seen before. I hate her. The very sight of her sets my bones on fire.

  ‘Don’t ask me that. Oh God, you don’t remember at all, do you? Look what he’s done to you! No, don’t even look at me.’ Her words are panicked now and she’s moving about as if she wishes she could simply vanish. She has a pack of cigarettes set out on a tree stump and she quickly sweeps it up, shoving it into her pocket and trying to leave. But I’m standing in the only exit from this particular cul-de-sac off the path. Sadie is tense at my ankles, and lets out a sharp bark that bites through the air.

  ‘I’m … I’m so goddamned sorry about before,’ she stutters as she moves. ‘I know I don’t have no fucking right to be here, but I … I can’t let him do this to you. You don’t know who he is. There are secrets he’s keeping from you. From everyone. I mean, oh Christ, I don’t even know what he’s done to you. Maybe he’s like … like them. Fuck!’ She’s frantic, like she’s trying to remember words from a script she’s been shocked into forgetting. She keeps trying to push past me, but I stand firm. ‘I didn’t do what they did, you know, back then!’ she continues. ‘Those fuckers. You do know it, I know you do! You can’t have forgot that. I was just their bait, for Christ sakes!’ She seems to want me to understand her. ‘I wasn’t like Gerald or Ross, or that bastard Ralph. I never laid a finger on you! And I just had to make sure, to see for myself, that he wasn’t doing the same thing to you. Help you get outta here.’

  She goes on, struggling, but her words hold no meaning for me. She’s just a babbling woman by the babbling water. Yet my hatred is exploding within me.

  Sadie barks again, fully aware of the tension hovering over her. She pulls to break free.

  ‘I tracked you down to this little – fuck, I don’t know whether it’s a town or a suburb, or what.’ The woman speaks breathlessly, urgently. ‘Had to figure out how to approach you. How to avoid him, because he just ain’t what you think he is.’ She looks like she might cry. Her face is turning a deep red.

  But my muscles convulse. Everything is going hot around me, like the trees have burst into flames. The new woman in my belly grabs my voice and screams out into the universe by the river.

  ‘Bitch! You had no right! You have no idea how you hurt me! What you did to me!’

  And the words seem sensible to me, as if I know what they mean.

  The woman is frantic. She’s embarrassed. She’s horrified. She looks sad, like a little girl. But she also seems practised at defiance and bunches up her features. A beautiful creature, despite her glower. Cropped black hair, short and fine. Soft cheeks. Rose-painted lips.

  A monster.

  ‘Just forget you saw me,’ she finally says, ‘forget about all this, like you’ve forgotten about everything else. Coming up here was wrong. I shouldn’t’a done it. There’s nothing I can do to help. Just … shit, just put me out of your mind, if you can.’ And now she’s walking towards me, intent on sidestepping my position. ‘Try to forget.’ And there’s a tear in her eye. I can just see it in the slanted light.

  Sadie’s barking is now incessant, and she pulls so hard that she snaps the clasp of her leash and lurches forward to dance around the feet of the other woman, snarling at the stranger with all the intimidation her ancient frame can muster.

  The leash dangles limp in my hand. I don’t know what this woman means for me to forget, but I’m suddenly in motion to match hers. Not thinking, just acting. My hands are trembling, yet even so they reach out, grab this woman by the shoulders and violently wrench her off her course. They throw her towards the water.

  ‘What the fuck are you—’

  But the woman inside me doesn’t let her finish. I fling myself after her and knock her onto her back in the shallow flat at the river’s edge.

  ‘You ruined me!’ I’m shouting. The cry bursts out of me like an eruption. ‘You told me it would just be to meet some new people! A bit of fun! And you tore my life away!’

  And I sense there are three of us here, now. There’s this woman I’ve knocked into the water, and me, and the third woman, harboured within me. I don’t know who she is or what she’s saying, but I don’t really feel I need to understand her words. It’s enough just to let her have her voice. So I let it tear through me, and it cuts like razor wire, shredding my heart.

  ‘Amber!’ the woman in the water cries. She knows my name. ‘Amber! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’

  Her eyes are pleading, terrified, but we don’t let her finish the cry. Neither myself nor I care what she has to say. We don’t want her explanations or excuses.

  I leap on top of her, straddling her stomach, and in a swift motion coil Sadie’s red leash around her neck. I pull on its ends, and as she writhes and tries to fend me off, I pull harder. Through the rough fibres I can feel the vibrations of tissue and bone collapsing as I cinch tighter.

  Our struggle lasts a few seconds, though I don’t know precisely how long. When it’s over, the woman in the water is still. Her eyes remain open wide, but her breath is gone. And I feel as if a great chorus of joy is bursting out of the heavens.

  I stand as the song radiates through me, a grief that I didn’t know I possessed passing within and then out of me.

  But as I right myself and gaze at the scene, something is wrong. Parts of the chorus of this moment don’t join in proper harmony. The shoreline, I realize, is muddy and unpleasant. It isn’t inviting, as I feel it should be. The earth should invite this moment. I’m not sure why, but I’m certain of it. This moment of righteousness. And the birds I know are in the nearby trees have gone silent, like Sadie herself. The world is mute when it should be singing.

  I kneel down at the woman’s side and stare into her lifeless face. For all the rage I felt a moment ago, I now feel only a quiet recognition.

  ‘Emma,’ I whisper, taking in her features. Her name comes with faded memories of a street corner, and a house, and being led to a door in a basement room with a fold-out bed and …

  ‘Emma.’

  Her name, spoken a final time. Enough to let her go.

  I get up, step back onto the almost-path, and wipe the wet and grime from my trousers. It’s all over me, saturating my clothes. ‘I’ll need a shower when I get back,’ I announce to Sadie. David
won’t like to see all this. He’ll worry I wandered into unsafe terrain, that I’ve hurt myself. A man who loves so intently shouldn’t be made to worry.

  So a shower it will be – and with that thought, things seem to return to normal. A switch, flipped. The scenery is once again in colour, and there is birdsong back in the air. I hear the little burbles of life by the water. My voice is once more solitary, and my thoughts content.

  There is pine and earth in my nostrils. Sadie rushes up to my ankles.

  I glance back at the river. Something is floating in it, off to my left, awkward and abnormal. Its colours don’t resonate with the palette of nature, but I don’t dwell on it for long. It’s the edge of the shore that draws me, so much more powerfully. There are tadpoles swimming in the algae, fluttering in the anticipation of life. They’re ready, anxious to become something new.

  It’s such a beautiful thing, this little world that exists a jaunt away from home. So much life. So much strength.

  So much peace.

  62

  David

  THE SAME EVENING

  When I return home from work, Amber is not in her usual frame of mind. There is a smile on her face and she’s stirring a pot of something that fills the kitchen with a rich scent. But there’s something unusual about her, and in the circumstances I’ve crafted for our life, unusual is never good.

  I try to counterbalance it with as normal a dose of behaviour as possible.

  ‘How was your day off, hon?’ I walk over and embrace her from behind, wrapping my arms around her stomach. I plant a long kiss on her neck. The lime scent of our favourite shower gel, fresh on her skin, mixes with that of the organic garlic and onions on the stove. I can feel her smile.

  ‘Just lovely,’ she answers, turning around far enough to brush a kiss across my lips before returning to her stirring. ‘Refreshing.’